Tea Party Origins and Future (long historical take)

[ZSorenson]

This is very long, for which I do not apologize as I have written it and posted it. I only ask that you read it for the proper reasons: that it interests you. Thus, I would not like to see criticisms for the length per se. If you do not read or reply, I can take that as evidence enough of disapproval. If specific content is of concern, I welcome debate. Only note that the length itself means that any debates have to be about specific statements or facts, and even better if these are about the more general points I make.

A summary is due as well: I posit that the Tea Party is an inevitable consequence of the evolution of America's culture of political socialization. This socialization refers to the legitimacy of the political system to the population in cultural terms. I argue that the dominant culture of socialization in American has not been essentially based on individual rights, but that it can be if the Tea Party succeeds as a movement.

Here is my analysis:

With less than a month until the 2010 midterm elections, the time has come for many to reflect on the nature and origin of the Tea Party.

While the Tea Party has been around for over a year, and has arguably been a significant phenomenon as a curious and unique manifestation of political energy in the story of the American Republic, the anticipated effect of this movement on the upcoming election has finally been recognized. The phenomenon has become a force.

We don't know what the full and final effects of this force will be. It has been argued that the American Constitution has facilitated the evolution of a number of different American Republics. Certain elections and administrations mark the evolution of the federal government into new forms that represent new relationships between government and the people. Among these: Jackson's populism, Lincoln's unionism, Roosevelt's entitlements, and so forth. It is argued that this most recent Tea Party phenomenon will push America into a yet another new form of government.

Will we see a significant change in the role of the federal government? I can't imagine we will. I think we could say so if changes such as the repeal of the federal minimum wage, the elimination Dept. of Education, Commerce, Energy and so forth are effected. The American way of life has long meant freedom from the fear of actual failure in life. No one will starve, no one will break bones, no one will work hard enough to render permanent harm to their bodies over the course of their careers. We won't accept these conditions.

But we outsource these conditions to other countries.

I maintain that these economic principles still hold true: 1) Robust growth is necessary in order to afford the benefits that protect those at society's margins from suffering 2) Our industrial economy has not yet developed to the point where robust growth is possible without cheap labor. If we don't grow, the margins will have to suffer: all the rich won't even have enough money to pay for all the needs of the poor. We may someday, but have not yet, integrated the technology into our industrial production chain, that will render cheap labor unnecessary.

Once upon a time, the world had small populations, and also was content - of necessity - to suffer the ravages of disease and famine. Industrialization changed both of these factors. Now, because of our population size, we must have industry or millions will most certainly perish. And if we hope to live with our level of life-saving sophistication, again we depend on an industrial economy.

What this has to do with the Tea Party is that the political struggle, whose essence is at the heart of the current movement, has its roots in the social response to the Industrial Revolution. We think of smokestacks as relics of a distant, Dickensian past. As if the fog of history covers this period only slightly less densely than that of knights, castles, and dragon. And yet, our political memory is much more fresh.

We remember TR, and Wilson. The Progressives, Hoover, and FDR are vibrant figures in the discussions we have about our current political situation. This should serve as evidence that despite the seeming distance of our pre-industrial past, in fact many of the political and social questions that arose during that period are as relevant and unanswered today as they have ever been.

This is important, because the fundamental premise that the Tea Party exists to challenge, is that these questions have been eternally answered. There is a line of thinking that a modern society is so complex that it necessarily requires large government bureaucracies to function without chaos a social unrest. This is what the Tea Party challenges.

The debate goes back to the time of the Progressives, at the turn of the 20th century. In that time, the notion that the federal government would be involved in economics was outrageous. Not only would many oppose it, but it simply had never been done. It was outside of the experience of the country.

And yet, so was much of what was happening due to industrialization. Consider the case of Standard Oil.

Many feared that Standard Oil was too rich, and too powerful. We often fail to acknowledge that this accumulation of wealth to levels never before seen corresponds directly to a never before seen increase in the use and availability of lantern oil in a society. For those angered at Standard's position, they need only decide to forgo the nighttime light that humanity had lived without for so many millenia prior. But they would not. Instead, people clamored to fix an 'injustice' in the national economy.

It was the Republicans who championed this. Granted, social justice was not their concern. The vitality and position of the Republic as master in society was their concern. Anti-trust was a show of force, in an age of sudden tycoons, and captains of industry.

Though Standard's competitors maintained a much smaller share of the market, the competition they offered was fierce. Standard Oil's position in the market was a consequence only of its ability to offer more for less, which it had to constantly do better at, in order to survive as market master.

So, American society's response to industrialization - in this context and example - can be seen as a failure to understand the economic facts at hand. Many American communities paid subsidies to get rail lines to their towns, only to sue companies as sufficient traffic to fill those lines led to track closings and loss on investment. The premise that no line was built in the first place, because economically it couldn't be sustained, this was lost on many.

And this is without mentioning the bizarre doctrine of social justice, which seemed to treat economic advances as manna from God, to be split and shared amongst scattered Israel. The rational, deliberate nature of the efforts to industrialize wealth production was not understood by the masses who demanded this justice.

But the advocates of this doctrine, loud, boisterous, appealing to the best and worst of humanity and Western culture, drove their point home. Not all accepted their claims, and in fact even American labor unions were skeptical of the 'pinkos'. Nevertheless, it was the newness, the novelty and therefore misunderstood nature of industrialization, that made Americans complacent as the freedom that made it possible was under attack.

Note that in 1910, industry was still rather novel. For reference in 2010, industry was about as developed as computers. The first railroads came into place around the mid-19th century, the first computers by the mid-20th. 2000-2010 marked the maturing of the internet, likewise the automobile from 1900-1910. By 2010, we have not yet decided how to regulate the internet. In fact, there is substantial opposition to doing so. We have barely begun to tax it, and there are no current laws on content or access to content. It is new, but perhaps in 100 years, once regulated, people will scoff at the notion of the internet being 'free and open' as 'impossible in such a complex society'.

So, when those such as Woodrow Wilson rose to power with claims of subverting industry to scientific bureaucratic controls, while many vocally opposed such an idea, most were rather ambivalent. Industry was appreciated, accepted as part of society, but its full implications were perhaps not fully understood.

And so Wilson got his way, especially with a war to justify his controls.

And with war we see the relevant strain of American politics that perhaps defines its course throughout its history. America was founded because of a war, and political socialization for our two and a half centuries has been based off of how we identify with those wars. For American culture, American liberty has not been the story of individual enlightenment through liberty, but rather of collective salvation in liberty. Liberty has been earned by the shedding of the blood of the people. Its value lies therein, and Americans are taught to value liberty for this reason above all others. Granted, perhaps not individually. But our collective devotion to liberty, that which unites us politically and socially, is a devotion to the sacrifices of our compatriots for the sake of America as a whole. The issue isn't belief in philosophical principles, the issue is whether one sustains or does not sustain the legitimacy of a political system comprised of others in making decisions about one's life.

Lincoln wrote about the effect of the Revolutionary War on creating a united America, and perhaps wittingly or unwittingly oversaw the war that would recommit the Union to Unionism. But this civil war alienated half the country, and occurred at an unfortunate period of time marking significant social changes at the onset of industry. World War I was the war that finally gave all Americans: North, South, Irish, poor, working, farmer, black, rich, middle class, a reason to feel united.

All the unanswered question of the industrial period, all of the unresolved issues, were ignored, subsumed into a spirit of unity fostered by war. And along with this war, the welcomed growth and enlargement of the federal leviathan. If Americans understood one thing, it was that war is what united them as Americans.

This doesn't make America war-like or war-mongering. Rather, war is the political language most Americans spoke. This has to do with what I will call the "Infallible Americanism".

By 1910, there was a notion in American society that the nature and form of American government represented a political perfection. 1776, 1789, were experiments, with an uncertain fate. 1865 tested that experiment, and it passed. By 1900, Americans were confident that their democratic republic, with its federalism and checks and balances represented the height of political organization. Not only was there no better way of doing it, but with such wonderful material advances from industry, many felt that America itself was a utopia. At least, the source of all that was good in America was its infallible Constitution and democratic framework, as a gift from Providence, earned through the shedding of blood, and justified by that blood.

So, with war as a socializing factor, and a notion of America as the infallible pinnacle of human society, there resides the framework for American politics at the time. The champions of social justice, the "progressives", were the vocal minority to challenge this near-universal view. And in for many valid reasons, they were right. Racism was rampant in America.

It would be intellectually lazy to dismiss racism as a product of fear and hate alone. I posit that racism was a social construct, meant to deal with the extremely difficult task of socializing many millions of people who had been for so many centuries so thoroughly dehumanized. The doctrine of Infallible Americanism - which with resounding success socialized so many millions of European immigrants - was not equipped to socialize former slaves. This is because Infallibe Americanism didn't identify solid philosophical principles as its justification, but was rather based on tradition, and nationalistic triumph through bloodshed. So racism acted as a stopgap to maintain the status quo despite a task it had enormous difficulty adapting to. But here we can see the seeds of the downfall of Infallible Americanism.

Infallible Americanism was a gilded framework. Much of its success lies in its untouchable nature. But as society modernized - with Darwinism, urbanism, multiculturalism - the framework offered little guidance to accommodate these changes. The framework also suffered because of war as its primary force for socialization. Recall, it was the blood spilt for liberty, not liberty itself that served as the uniting factor.

Let me explain my position a little more comprehensively. Political socialization is primarily a cultural phenomenon that has to do with large populations accepting the legitimacy of a political system according to social and cultural understandings. Infallible Americanism, as an identity, contains two elements: a cause, and a consequence. Culturally, the warfare and nationalism was the cause - the reason above all else why everyone ought to accept the legitimacy of the Republic. The consequence was that, according to tradition, the Republic uphold the principles of liberty. Liberty as an idea was only as relevant as the red, white, and blue colors of the flag. It was an expression that identified the phenomenon. Liberty was one thing that distinguished America - but it was not a primary in justifying it. While, in reality, liberty is the cause of America's prosperity, our culture at the time hadn't fully accepted this. The entire appeal of a concept such as social justice is evidence of this. American Populism would never have been possible if liberty was a cultural primary in America's political social identity.

As Lincoln noted, it was the Revolutionary War that held America together: nearly all Americans of his youth had acquaintances and living relatives with experience of that war, and therefore a personal stake in it. This gave America a cultural, social stake in the American Republic - which was bought by the war. Lincoln noted that fewer and fewer living people had personal stake in the war, and that something else would have to emerge to give Americans a cultural stake in their Republic. He proposed the teaching of essential American ideals to youths on the knees "Republican Mothers". He identified what I will call: "American Exceptionalism". This refers to the philosophical ideas that have been, in reality, behind America's prosperity and success. Nevertheless, because a political system represents a social relationship, the culture of that society must accept that political system in order for it to function. American Exceptionalism requires a philosophical society, and one could argue that the Spirit of 1776 was philosophical in essence. Nevertheless, modernization challenges philosophies, and without proper philosophies to meet these challenges, stopgap cultural measures are needed to preserve political systems based on philosophy. In essence, Infallible Americanism is a non-philosophical stopgap which represents a pragmatic support of American values.

Today's culture wars, and the rise of the Tea Party, are in direct consequence to the downfall of Infallible Americanism.

World War I held the seeds of the downfall of Infallible Americanism. Social stresses were pulling the framework apart. America's enthusiasm for WWI was in many ways a last ditched effort to recommit to a common political culture, to preserve whatever it was, unidentified, that made America possible. The prosperity and peace that most enjoyed was the object of this longing. New immigrants came to American and knew implicitly that it was great. What they might not have been sure about was why.

By diverting the energies of Americans in their devotion to America through the filter of war, the Wilson Administration and his Progressives enacted the changes that would bring down what had made America great. This was achieved through massive interference by the government in commerce and economics. There was an unprotested loss of economic liberty. In should also be noted in passing, that the efforts of the Wilson Administration to use propoganda and to set Americans to spy against one another, represent one of the most severe losses of civil liberty in American history. The issue at hand isn't purely economic, even though I maintain that economic liberty is the root of all liberty.

The immediate consequence was a severe recession. In response, President Harding did what had been the tradition of most Presidents before him: nothing. The standing, and now forgotten, culture of the time was that the federal government had no business commanding business.

It worked, the recovery was America's most successful. The 1920's her most prosperous decade. Except for the end, of course. The progressives, outside the framework of Infallible Americanism, continued their push against the status quo. They employed every means they could. Every failure of the status quo was used to their favor: racism, sexism, greed, poverty, ethnicity, academic ignorance. At this point, still, the Progressives represented an ivory tower of intellectuals. Their ideas had little to do with the day to day culture of America, and how it viewed itself in terms of the legitimacy of its government.

America was evolving out of its traditional framework, though. Prohibition, and the flappers rejected traditional mores. These mores, and Infallible Americanism, were so closely tied together. America needed a new framework, something that gave everyone equal cause for devotion to liberty. Without tradition, all it had was war, and the central agent of war was government.

The government was the only place American society, therefore, knew to turn to in order to find a source of unity and liberty. Like growing pains, stretch marks, and the like, American society fractured as it entered the modern world. And these fractures were filled by more and more stopgap measures on the part of government - the Grand Republic at the heart of Infallible Americanism.

And these measures failed. 1929, a recession caused by two factors. 1) A failure on the part of American society to properly understand and take responsibility for market conditions. The formula for sound banking practice was well known. Greedy banks who failed to act rationally arose because society hadn't properly accounted for its own prosperity. No one said: responsibility, hard work, reality, these are the cause of our success. Instead, at least from a social perspective, the reasoning was: we're America, which is perfect, therefore we have prosperity. And naturally, failures were addressed by attempting to be 'more American'. This meant more government action.

2) Actions by the government to help Americans, in particular by the new Federal Reserve system, but also by misguided federal actions to reduce competition in the marketplace, led to an imbalance in the market. 1929 was the breaking point for this imbalance. The actions taken after that point only increased the level of these harmful activities on the part of the federal government.

America reacted by electing FDR. FDR didn't change the Infallible America paradigm much. Instead, he used it, but evolved it. Part of the Infallible America premise is maintaining the status quo, that includes laissez-faire with regards to business. FDR didn't challenge Infallible America, rather he culturally introduced the idea that the essence of Infallible America lay with the strength of its government, and rejected the idea that the status quo of laissez-faire or tradition had anything to do with it.

Though not well understood or taught in schools for all of the remainder of the 20th century, the fact is that FDR's policies did nothing to help the economy. People grew incredibly disillusioned of him. But his politics were ruthless, through coalitions and make-work jobs he got the votes he needed - barely - to stay in office. And through propaganda he maintained the illusion that if anything, he was trying to rule in the model of Infallible Americanism. It is no wonder, then, that he was chosen to lead the country through the crisis of World War II over newcomer businessman Wendell Wilkie. Business was no longer culturally understood as an essential player in Infallible Americanism.

With World War II, the modern socializing factor of American society emerges. Modern patriotism is always understood through the framework of America's triumph in World War II. America's prosperity, international position, form of government, culture, 'goodness', and infallibility are all seen as vindicated because of that war. Even modern sentiments regarding Viet Nam, POW/MIA, and so forth, are all attempts to recreate the cultural vindication of World War II's triumph.

World War II also represents the vindication of FDR. The economic implications of his policies are irrelevant, cuturally, because he won the war.

Nevertheless, from the 1950's, there is a divergence in American culture. FDR gave Infallible Americanism a distinctly left-wing flavor. And so, a significant portion of society began to accept the legitimacy of left-wing ideas in the American conscience. This divergence is the root of the culture wars.

The culture wars are the modern framework for American society. These have supplanted Infallible Americanism, which no longer exists. Rather, it persists as a bifurcated crippled shadow of itself. The culture wars started as rumblings in the 50's, full emergence in the 60's, maturity in the 70's, and have since been the status quo.

While some might be inclined to see the culture wars as two opposing factions, both illegitimate heirs to American Exceptionalism, I contend that only one faction is the proper heir.

Thusfar, I have been discussing something I have called Infallible Americanism. I consider this to be the late 19th century understanding of something I've called American Exceptionalism. American Exceptionalism is that part of the American political tradition devoted to individual liberty. This exceptionalism is found in the philosophical essence of the Declaration of Independence, and therefore transcends both the Constitution, as well as all of American history. The Declaration itself precedes the victory at Yorktown, and very much is what the the blood of patriots was spilled on behalf of. While there may have been battles, and discontent, prior to the signing of the declaration, the essence of the cultural spirit driving these events is contained in that document. Moreover, regardless of the other causes for the war, America itself as the product of that war and the object of that patriotism is defined in the declaration. Thus, all the socialization based on war, the liberty for which the blood was spilt, this liberty is defined in the Declaration of Independence. This liberty refers to individual rights, and by implication both all the gains in civil rights during the 20th century, but also in a negative sense to all the loses in economic rights during that time. Laissez-faire is generally a direct implication of this philosophical spirit.

The importance of American Exceptionalism is that it represents what is truly an ideal. This ideal is based off of what can be called natural or even objective rights. Individual liberty is the proper state for mankind. And it results in the greatest prosperity and happiness for mankind. This real prosperity and real success behind the American system of government is what has united and inspired Americans to be American. Infallible Americanism is, unfortunately, how American society as a whole had come to understand American Exceptionalism.

Today, the left-wing of the culture wars has achieved victory in advocating for the civil rights of Americans. Adopted into American culture through FDR's efforts (it was originally an intellectual movement with a strong European flavor), this version of Infallible Americanism was forward-looking. It sought to take the perceived formula of the Grand Republic, and apply it to new areas. This means bigger government with more responsibilities. So, correctly perhaps, this wing has been described as 'liberal'. Liberal would mean an openness to new ideas, in the context of Infallible Americanism. Well meaning liberals have advanced the civil rights element of American Exceptionalism through their efforts. Unfortunately, as of today they have moved beyond what is necessary to achieve individual liberty. What was once a battle for civil rights has become a post-modernist, deconstructionist, dehumanizing multiculturalism that is in effect no more than cheap Marxism. In almost no way can this wing be seen as the proper defenders of any portion of the American Exceptionlist philosophy.

The right-wing has been properly described as conservative. More so than the left-wing, the right-wing defines itself by a backwards-looking attachment to Infallible Americanism. By default that means an attachment to old ideas rejected post-FDR, such as laissez-faire. For a time, this conservatism has also meant an attachment to old frameworks, such as institutional racism. Although conservatism has intellectually reconciled that racism is not compatible with the essence of American Exceptionalism, it is still attached to tradition, primarily religion, as the essence and cause of this exceptionalism. This is because of an attempt to reinstate the old framework of Infallible Americanism, which by default as much adhered to religion as it did to laissez-faire economics.

The right-wing must be thought of as more devoted to the essence of American Exceptionalism, because of its efforts to hold true to past lessons. The left-wing seeks to move beyond these lessons. Despite the failure of Infallible Americanism to properly enshrine individual rights in the American social political culture, the essence of America as a concept, through the Declaration of Indepence - American Exceptionalism - is not inherently flawed. Thus, efforts to hearken back, and to discover and restore essential Americanism should be encouraged and applauded. Nevertheless, such efforts have to be intellectual and philosophical, rather than traditional or historical, in order to succeed.

The 1980's marked a victory for the right-wing in the Reagan administration. This victory not only provided the right-wing with a much lacking sense of identity, it also solidified the movement's connection to old Infallible Americanism. In many ways, the success of the Reagan Administration in a pseudo-military fashion against the Soviet Union, reflects the essence of Infallible American socialization. Though no blood was shed in any significance, victories in Grenada, and military build up against a violent enemy put this victory in a military context.

The left itself has sought identity through war. Although this is via opposition to war during the 1960's Vietnam war protests, these protests represented a fair level of cultural agitation. Where is the left's association with the anti-war movement, without Kent State? This, despite the victims having had nothing to do with the protest. Again, the left-wing of the culture wars is a socialization according to the framework of old Infallible Americanism.

I would contend that the framework of the culture wars is not as divisive as one would think. Each side is defined by touchstone issues: abortion, religion, sex education, things of enormous personal, emotional, and hence cultural significance. Yet, these issues are of little significance in reality, at least when compared to economic issues. As long as each side remains split on the touchstone issues, the mainstream populations of both wings will accept the legitimacy of the system that enfranchises both. That's the key to understanding the culture wars. It is little more than old Infallible Americanism, defined now by a domestic split over irrelvant touchstone issues of popular cultural signficance only. The Grand Republic - big government, nationalism, and so forth - remains the dominant paradigm.

This is why religious conservatives 'put up with' leftism in the media for so long. The media was an insitution of Infallible Americanism, with the 1st amendment as its banner.

This is why progressives on the left were satisfied to participate in a political system whose constitution denied them the most basic political tools they deemed necessary to achieve 'social justice'. That same Constitution guaranteed them the civil liberties that would defend against ever worse foes like Nazis or Fascists, who as history showed, might not allow them to even publicly advocate their views. The system was legitimate so long as it met that requirement.

This is the context for the culture wars that have persisted until Sept. 2001. The Tea Party movement grew out of the events of Sept. 11.

That might seem odd, but it is true.

Recall that both wings of the culture wars are built out of Infallible Americanism, which has war as its primary socilazing factor.

Also, by 2001, the culture wars had reached a standstill. Reagan was demonized as ignorant, Clinton as immoral. Each side used its touchstones for self-identification to define the other side. Bush was moral, but ignorant. And yet, he represented no change of significance to the status quo. Abortion would not be banned. The federal government would not shrink. It was a ceasefire.

Allow me to offer additional context to the idea of political socialization. Political socialization,again, is what causes a large enough population of humans to live with enough contentment within a legal framework, for that legal framework to be of any effect in that society.

When people are desocialized, they reject the law, and there is chaos until some other arrangement is reached. In American history, the arrangements have more often than not evolved slowly enough so that no period of much chaos was necessary. What this means in terms of the year 2000, is that the established framework for contention between the two wings of the culture wars were sufficient for both sides to keep at it indefinitely. Both sides felt that they were close enough to gains, comfortable enough with their losses, that no significant changes were necessary. Thus, it is the perception of satisfaction with the political system - if not the outcome - that causes a political arrangement to persist.

Consider therefore, the effect of the worst attack on American soil in over 100 years. No single event in the 20th century was more deadly to civilian Americans, deadly on the American mainland, than what happened on Sept. 11. This is the sort of event that challenges perceptions. This is the sort of event that causes an evolution of the political socialization of a culture.

There are many conceivable consequences of this event. I will mention the significant one: an end to the ceasefire in the culture wars.

Despite the contention of the culture wars, each side existed so long as contention was relgated to irrelevant touchstones. If an issue became contentious, it became a touchstone. War is an issue that has almost acted as a touchstone, but never quite. At the outset of Vietnam, it was the left's interventionism that asked for the war. At its close, the right was its defender. Yet, even the right accepted a sense of illegitimacy for a war against a foe that had not necessarily done anything to America. Despite contention, there was no mainstream break along the issue of legitimacy regarding the war.

Sept. 11 is important, because it has been an issue of too great significance to be ignored. It, as war, is also an issue that cannot exist as a touchstone in the culture wars. War is foundational to the doctrine to Infallible Americanism. Any split, in terms of legitimacy, over war, is a cultural split over the social legitimacy of the entire American political system.

I will now discuss the war in Iraq, specifically. I will not be arguing the facts of that war, but instead will focus on the perception of those facts by each wing of the culture wars.

To the right-wing, action in Iraq was not only a good idea, it was necessary under its framework of political socialization. America was attacked in such an obvious, historic, and flagrant manner. America itself - as an idea, a concept - demanded a response. The necessity of war was built into the idea of America. Those on the right-wing who took any stake in the democracy, and these would be voters, would demand war. This is because their commitment to America is based on a tradition and socialization built on war. This isn't to say these people are war-like. Recall that they accepted the left-wing's response to Viet Nam, more or less, because of the interventionist nature of the war and ambiguous nature of the enemy. But Sept. 11 was an irrefutable attack on America, and nothing about it was ambiguous.

At first, the left-wing reacted in unity with the right-wing. Sept. 11 unified the country. This is proof of the common framework built off of Infallible Americanism that defines the culture wars. It is a framework of unity based on the spilt blood of American matyrs. For a time, many on the left even seriously considered the necessity of action against Iraq. But eventually they had to oppose it.

Why?

The culture wars, in many ways, represented a dialectic approach to politics. The right looked back, the left looked foward. The impossibility of unity on the touchstone issues is what made unity on the functional issues possible. Thus, Congress succeeds in raising the debt ceiling year after year, expanding entitlements, funding it all, so long as each congressperson gets their two cents in on where they stand on irrelevant issues like sexual education in public schools. No one questions the legitimacy of public schooling. Public schooling is a foundational project of the Grand Republic, and part of Infallible Americanism.

Sept. 11 forced the left-wing to accept the fundamental legitimacy of the right-wing. A forward looking America would turn to the international community to deal with the issue of American spilt blood. A backward looking America would carry a big stick, and punish the bad guys before riding into the sunset.

The Iraq issue meant that the left-wing needed to choose whether its 'left-ness' or 'American-ness' was more essential to the itself. Choosing the latter would subsume the left under the old umbrella of Infallible Americanism, which the right more closely represented.

The culture wars themselves represented a synthesis of two opposing ideas. These ideas are foundationally economic, and based in reality. One is American Exceptionalism, the other is Western Collectivism. Infallible Americanism is a non-concept, it is a pragmatic umbrella under which was subsumed America's traditions. These traditions were mostly in the spirit of individual rights, but included a fair commitment to collectivism in the Christian tradition. The culture wars decided to retain Infallible Americanism into the modern age by refusing to deal with the consquences of integrating its disparate components. Individualism and collectivism cannot be integrated. The synthesis of the two is the culture wars.

The synthesis is achieved by rendering the debate over individualism vs. collectivism as non-essential. Instead, stupid cutural issues became the essential aspects of the culture wars. The issue of individual rights was left to fall where it might, and fortunately America's strong traditions held onto many of these rights.

War, however, while not necessarily essential to the issue of individual rights vs. collectivism (there is a healthy debate about that vis-a-vis Iraq), is essential to the culture wars synthesis, because it is essential as an issue to Infallible Americanism.

There was through mainstream support for the Afghanistan war. The left, with Iraq, had a war that was no longer foward-looking and international, but part of the big-stick traditions of conservative America. Although refusing to support this war would only be natural for the left, making war a touchstone issue would dissolve the cultural synthesis. This meant having to implicitly reject the legitimacy of that synthesis, and therefore the legimitacy of the right-wing.

Thus, the left-wing embraced openly its more radical elements. These elements bear ironically the label 'progressive'. Progressives weren't included - as 'liberals' - under the umbrella of Infallible Americanism, with the attendent mainstream legitimacy, until FDR. The pre-FDR progressives were outside the mainstream socialization. And today, the new progressives have placed themselves outside as well.

MoveOn.org, Michael Moore, and the like, represent these radical elements. Why Iraq is important, is because the mainstream liberals in the media and congress openly embraced them because of this issue. They hadn't beforehand, because of a sense of commitment to the 'center' and 'moderation' - in other words, Infallible Americanism.

While the mainstream left has dabbled with radicals before, particularly under the radar, the open rejection of the right's legitimacy is novel. What's new is that the right-wing's reaction to Iraq forced it to finally reject the left in return. They knew, in their minds, that the war had to happen for America to be America. And so, over the decade, there rose a growing skepticism of the voices that said otherwise.

Consider how the left must have looked. Instead of saying the war was bad for America, they granted the right-wing legitimacy in its premise that this war was good according to the American tradition. What they instead argued, was that America - in its traditional essence - was bad.

The success of outlets like Fox News, and conservative talk radio, are in direct consequence to this subtle change in identity on the left. Many right-wing Americans experienced a story of the war from their serving family members that contradicted that of the nightly news. They in turn began to give up on this traditionally legitimate Grand Institution of Infallible America.

Nevertheless, the foundational issue is that neither side can any longer accept the legitimacy of the other. While the ever enlarging margins of both sides have felt this way for some time, Sept. 11 has caused the popular mainstreams of both to come to this point of view.

Infallible Americanism is now completely dead. The right-wing and left-wing margins now represent the mainstream of both factions. It is now a battle for keeps to which entire populations are devoted.

This sense of illegitimacy has manifested itself slowly but surely in the past few years.

And this leads to the last critical issue at hand: economics. In terms of political socialization, economics is the most important issue in the sense that it affects the broadest swathe of the people. It also is a function of reality, and cannot be ignored by cultural cognitive dissonance.

The 2000's were marked, despite a significant war, by general prosperity. The first major economic issue would be the first issue to generate enough interest to test the new political reality.

This issue was raised oil prices. With $4.00 per gallon gasoline prices, people were no longer content with decades-old environmentalist drilling bans on the part of the left. This wasn't the fringe, most Americans wanted this. Had the issue been openly debated, had gasoline remained at that price, the congressmembers who voted to keep a drilling ban would be voted out of office in 2008.

In the old political reality of Infallible Americanism, the old liberals would bend, or, at least, the old conservatives would give them a pass. As long as both parties were polarized on the touchstone issues, the system would remain legitimate.

But 9/11, and the Iraq War, changed that. The conservatives would not give a free pass. Their mantra: Drill Baby Drill. The liberals would not bend. Nancy Pelosi wouldn't even allow debate. Congress was to recess before election. The Republicans in Congress spoke on the issue in the house floor despite Congress being in recess. Pelosi had the lights turned out.

In the darkness, half of America was represented. They chanted in unison: "Drill Baby Drill".

The legacy media, the old symbol of an objective united American identity, didn't cover it.

So, as "Drill Baby Drill" was yelled in the 2008 Republican Convention, the leftist doctrine about conservatives, oil, and greed, completely misunderstood the nature of the changes occuring in their opposition. Are the Republicans so brazen as to openly declare their irrational, Dracula like, thirst for oil at the cost of the blood of brown peoples? To the left, yes - and this is because they do not accept the legitimacy of their opponents.

And so, in 2009, the Stimulus, and Obamacare were passed. That a poll of a majority of Americans opposed the latter, that a legislative majority sufficient to pass a bill by transparent and traditional means was unavailable; it didn't matter. The Democrats, in their chicanery, have declared openly their lack of commitment to the American system of government. Their intellectual foes are illegitimate, the vote of a conservative only something to be subverted and worked-around. This has long been the view of the left-wing. But now, it is a view that the majority of Democratic politicians will vote on behalf of.

The conservatives have received the message. That is the Tea Party: a movement that no longer accepts the legitimacy of the Infallible Americanism. The legacy media won't be trusted even when factual, the role of government won't be accepted even when legitimate, the secularism of the other side will not be tolerated. The Tea Party is characterized by one idea: lack of trust. The Tea Party does not trust the status quo, and while the economy affects so many, will continue to reject the old way of doing things.

Rick Santelli may have said "Tea Party" first publicly, but its pioneering organizers are the same individuals behind "Drill Baby Drill". This statement seems spiritual, and is essentially so, but in fact the actual organizers of the "Drill Baby Drill" busings were heavily involved with the first tea party.

And so where is the future?

My hope, and analysis, is that the Tea Party will turn to the essence of Americanism as it seeks a new paradigm. In response, the left will reject that essence.

The right will become the movement of true American Exceptionalism as this group of Americans begins to understand and identify individual rights as the source of prosperity in American history, and the secret behind its success.

If the Tea Party succeeds in making major changes - limiting the federal government, repealing economic controls - and the economy rebounds, this might cement these ideas in the culture of American political socialization.

It can happen. While their loved ones spilt blood for the ideal of liberty - so framed, even if incorrectly, by George W. Bush - their countrymen mocked them while at the same time voting for less liberty. In this way, the 'victory' paradigm remains in the context of war - and is familiar to the American culture - but the victory is not over some violent foe, but rather is an intellectual victory. Thus, an actual cultural passing of the torch from spilt blood nationalism, to philosophical principles.

There is always a fear that these conditions will result in a war too - the thing that both sides understand best. Despite their insistence on peace, I am certain that the left won't mind war against their right-wing foes - whom they accept as essentially barbaric and violent. Against violence from the left, the right will handily respond with violence. Any individual rights that remain will have place in a colloquial framework, and will have to make room for religion, tradition, and nationalism - as they did in the Wilsonian era.

Nevertheless, what will the future look like if the Tea Party succeeds?

In the near future, will the left use their lame-duck status in Congress to engage in politically unprecedented abuses of power? Hopefully the changes they might make will be subject to future repeal. Hopefully they will be punished for this, or even stopped.

The Tea Party must make significant changes to the federal government. Changes of no less significance than repeal of a federal minimum wage, rejection of the concept of public education, or the elimination of a major federal department. Some of the candidates who might succeed are advocating some of these ideas. These ideas haven't been legitimate in the cultural framework for over a century. That is change.

Of course, for the left, similar changes mean anarchy and violence. Expect less respect for property, less tolerance of politically incorrect ideas, more violent anarchists, more lethargy as rebellion, more drug use and gang activity to fill the gaps, and more tolerance for it as a gleeful celebration of the declining status of the 'man'.

It is more than likely that the national impact of the Tea Party will be minimal relative to the enthusiasm of its base. The states will become the agents of the battle.

States will refuse to comply with the federal government, and the two factions will use this dynamic as the source of their conflict. This will be facilitated by a repeal of the 17th amendment. With Linda McMahon, Christine O'Donnell, Sharon Angle, Joe Miller, Scott Brown, etc., even the liberals will support the legislative appointment of senators. The Senate will be a major battleground going into the future.

The federal government, and its unavoidable debt problem, and the even more pressing debt problems of individual states, will be the source of leverage in this battle.

The liberals will threaten to sacrifice America to foreign enemies, rather than lose their battle for control. Expect phony wars by liberal Democrats.

Going into the long-term future, religion will become a dead issue in politics. Conservatives will remove religion from politics, liberals will try to exploit it under the social justice framework.

Abortion will be a dead issue. Forced birth control will become the dividing issue. This is not an inevitability, but an example of how the new political paradigm might look.

In the end, the Tea Party will prevail, and American Exceptionalism will become the ruling paradigm. Lincoln's dream will come true as Republican Mothers teach the doctrines of American Exceptionalism to the youth on their knees. This is because America is fundamentally American, which is the factor that has sustained the culture wars for so long. It allowed America to resist the European collectivism that has been characteristic of the industrial age. Despite the flaws of Infallible Americanism, and the culture war paradigm, both have remained fairly essentially American. As the liberal experiment collapses under the weight of its own debt, as collectivism fails to square with reality and more and more are capable of identifying the philosophical causes, the principle of individual rights will prevail in the culture.

So, I'm not too worried about the future in terms of the direction it leads. America itself was no accident. American Exceptionalism emerged because humans have progressed over the centuries to a better and better understanding of what is essential to proper human living. It is inevitable, so long as we survive, that the trend towards individual rights and reason would continue. That doesn't guarantee that we'll be there to see it.

The alternative is a suicidal, nihilistic left, that sacrifices the country to foreign foes. They aren't powerful enough to raise enough domestic unrest to cause a civil war. But through fiscal and monetary policies, the arsenal of pax americana, America's last gasp of post-WWII preeminence, and through an appeal to old Infallible Americanism, the liberals can at least defeat their enemies by drawing America into an unwinnable war of last resort. Before the ship can change course, and it must change course, it can always be scuttled. This is my biggest fear. Whatever emerges on the other side, is horrible no matter what form it takes.

That is my analysis.